


What it means to understand love

by Boshy



Series: Boshy- Sakuatsu angst week 2021 [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Affection, Cemetery, Flowers, Food, Grief/Mourning, Language of Flowers, M/M, Purple Hyacinth, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 01:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boshy/pseuds/Boshy
Summary: Why would his brother keep visiting the person who treated him so coldly? Why would his brother keep bringing purple hyacinths every day when they were bound to die anyway? Why did his brother not move on? Why did his brother keep himself restrained to Sakusa Kiyoomi? Why, why, why, why?Each time Atsumu would give him a sad smile and say, “Because I love him.”
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: Boshy- Sakuatsu angst week 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2203725
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32
Collections: SakuAtsuAngstWeek





	What it means to understand love

**Author's Note:**

> //tw death
> 
> Day six prompt: "I tried leaving. But I always end up running back to you"
> 
> Enjoy!

It hurt.

Seeing his twin brother visit the graveyard as often as he did, made Osamu feel extremely dejected.

‘As often as he did’ meant every day. 

Every day, Osamu passed by the graveyard to see Atsumu kneeled over the grave of a person who did not love him back. 

He hated it.

Every night he passed by the graveyard to see his brother crying, a purple hyacinth placed on the dry dirt before him.

It made his blood boil.

Every night, his brother would be passed out, head resting on the dirt, the flower clutched towards his chest and his tear-stained face just barely visible in the soft silvery moonlight. 

He didn’t understand.

Why would his brother keep visiting the person who treated him so coldly? Why would his brother keep bringing purple hyacinths every day when they were bound to die anyway? Why did his brother not move on? Why did his brother keep himself restrained to Sakusa Kiyoomi? Why, why, why, why?

Each time Atsumu would give him a sad smile and say, “ _ Because I love him.” _

But he’s dead now. Can you still love someone who’s dead? Why did he keep hurting himself like this? 

“ _ Because I love him _ ,”

Why love? 

Why not  _ loved _ ? 

“ _ He will always be apart of me, even if he didn’t know,” _

But he’s gone.

“ _ He lives inside of me. In my heart, there’s a little chunk where he can do anything he likes,” _

Even if he breaks it?

“ _ He can break it a million times if he wants, but it will always belong to him,” _

But that would break  _ you _ .

“ _ And I’d still let him,” _

Why?

“ _ Because I’ll never stop loving him _ ,”

Osamu didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. Something told him he’d never understand.

_ “You’ll understand one day; when you meet a person that you’d do anything for. You’d let them break you into tiny pieces over and over again. You don’t understand now but I hope someday you do, and when you do, I’ll know. I’ll know that you’ll have met love. It might be painful, but then you remember what it was like when they were still here, and that is something you can never forget. “ _

So love doesn’t have a happy ending? 

“ _ I think that depends, _ ”

“Atsumu, he’s gone,”

“I know,” He whispered.

“Do you?” Osamu asked.

Atsumu nodded his head firmly, “I do,”

“Then do ya think it’s time to say goodbye?” 

Atsumu looked at him, eyes shining brightly and his hands clenched on his lap, but he looked up at Osamu with a smile, “It’s never time to say goodbye,”

“But he’s gone, he’s never coming back, why are you being stubborn? Just leave him! He was a jerk to ya!” Osamu cried.

“ ‘Samu, have ya ever been in love?” Atsumu turned his head towards the gravestone and started playing with the flower he’d left there.

No answer. 

“Hmm alright, well, do ya love me? Or Ma, or Pa?” The petals fell, one by one, some onto the soil, some on his lap and some floated around without landing.

“Of course I do, yer my family,” he replied, confused.

“D’ya remember that fight we had at the end of our second year? When ya told me you wanted to quit volleyball?” Atsumu still wouldn’t look at him, “What if I never forgave you? What if after that fight I never spoke to ya again, just cut off all contact with you and no matter how hard you tried to speak to me I wouldn’t let ya.” A crystal tear dripped down his cheek and onto the flower, “And then one day, you got a call saying I was dead, do you think you’d let it go? Would you be able to say goodbye?”

Osamu said nothing, the words dying in his throat, refusing to come out. Silent tears attacked his eyes.

"So please, don't ask me to let him go. Because I will  _ never _ be able to do that, no matter how much I try, because I love him, forever and always,"

"It's not the same," Osamu whispered, "We're-- we're family, bound by blood,"

" _ Blood _ , doesn't make family,"

"Then what does that make us? If we’re not family what are we?”

“That’s not what I said,”

“No, I’m pretty sure it is,”

“ _What I_ _meant was_ , that there’s more to a family than just blood. There are bonds and relationships you make, then those people feel like family too. It’s not _just_ blood that makes a family,”

“And he felt like family did he?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu smiled sadly, “But now he’s gone,”

Osamu grunted. He held out his hand to pull his brother up, but didn’t let go. He ignored Atsumu’s bemused look and his stupid chatter, walking them over to his car instead. He buckled Atsumu in then walked around to the driver’s seat. Osamu tossed his phone to his twin mumbling to pick a playlist then twisted his key to turn on the engine. He followed the almost empty roads along, admiring the night. They stopped at a drive-through where Osamu ordered two strawberry ice creams, one in a cone (‘Samu), and one in a cup (‘Tsumu, he said it’s because his teeth are sensitive to the cones). 

Once he had handed over the ice cream, he let Atsumu get a few bites in before speaking, “Talk,” He demanded.

Atsumu was mid-lick and responded with a, “Hmm?”

“Talk; about him,”

“Well, what about him?”

“Anything you want,”

Atsumu hummed and licked his ice cream again nonchalantly. Osamu said nothing, but stared at him with burning eyes.

“I love him; he didn’t love me,” Atsumu’s eyes flickered, “I still love him; he’s gone. I’ll never stop loving him, even if he’s still gone. … Y’know, just because he didn’t love me didn’t mean he wasn’t nice; he was. You weren’t there, every day, he would act like he didn’t care but he did. He cared a lot. Maybe more than any of us realised. He’s the youngest y’know; he  _ was _ . We called him the baby of the team or-- both teams I guess.  _ Don’t look at me like that, I _ mean out of the second years obviously! … Now the name’s empty, it doesn’t feel right to just hand it over to someone else y’know, because it was  _ his. _ It was. Then he left,” He was shaking now. 

Osamu placed a hand on Atusmu’s thigh, allowing the setter to take a breath, “He left us,” Atsumu croaked, “I don’t know why, I never will but, was he not loved enough? Do you think he felt unloved? Because I was  _ there _ . I was there the whole time. I always loved him, why didn’t he just SAY SOMETHING. Anyone, he could’ve reached out to anyone. We would’ve tried to help. What could have been so painful that he had to leave all of us behind? Leave  _ me  _ behind. I was there the whole time, but I didn’t even--” He choked on his words and buried his face into his palms. Osamu pursed his lips and pulled his brother in for a hug, gently rubbing his back.

“It’s not your fault ‘Tsumu,” He whispered.

“Then whose fault is it? His? His family? The people who didn’t love him? His fans’? Who ‘Samu? Who’s fault is it?” Atsumu demanded.

“I don’t know,” Osamu replied truthfully, “I don’t know ‘Tsumu. Maybe it’s no one’s fault. Maybe it was everyone, I’ll never know.”

“Then how could you say it wasn’t me?” Atsumu sniffed.

“Because I can tell how much you love him,” He stated simply.

“And what if that, me loving him, was the cause of--”

“It wasn’t,” Osamu gently interrupted, “You told me that you hope I experience love, but love is scary. Love hurts. Love is pain. Love always comes to an end. Love doesn’t always have a happy end. Loving someone means that you constantly do what you think is best for them; like how I just got you an ice cream. But, what you think is best for them, isn’t what’s best for them. You never know everything about a person. Sometimes they don’t tell ya the whole picture,”

Atsumu froze in his arms for a minute, then moved back, holding Osamu’s hand to his chest with both hands, “You’re not going to do anything right? You’re okay? You’d tell me if anything was wrong or if you needed any help right?”

Osamu shook his head, “I’d tell you Atsu, I promise,”

Atsumu nodded, slowly dropping Osamu’s hand.

“You’d tell me too, right?” He asked, eyes wide and unblinking.

Atstumu nodded again.

Osamu held out his pinky and Atsumu hooked it with his own. The two held their hands in the air for a moment longer then Osamu tackled his brother again. 

“I’m sorry Atsumu, I’m sorry that he’s gone,”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/boshy26)


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